Sunday, September 27, 2009

To promote or not to promote...

To promote or not to promote that was the other big question...

Shakespeare is probably revolving at a rate of knots in his grave right now - sorry Bill, I'm sure I'm not the first. So the school holidays have arrived and before I get pushed off the computer by the kids I wanted to try and scrape the rest of what I remember from the conference off the floor of my brain before it's gone in holiday programmes, taxi duties and a collection of sorry excuses for movies.

A number of folk at the conference - presenters, publishers and booksellers included were keen on authors/illustrators promoting their books to the public. Especially for publishers and booksellers the bottom line is income - if they don't sell product they don't survive. For authors and illustrators the equation is a lot more murky with a complex bottom line that often includes a fear of public speaking. One prominent author said promotion and marketing are not the job of the writer/illustrator but belong with the publisher. I whined to my writer friend about this on the plane ride home - sorry T. - prominent author could easily say this as they already has excellent reputation to help sell their works (and now that i think about it prominent author already has occasional tv presence too so does do own promotion anyway even if inadvertantly). T suggested that prominent author's comments were designed to give people permission not to promote if they felt it was beyond them. Hmmm. For myself, my fear of obscurity outweighs my fear of public speaking. And if one does get asked to speak I would bet any one they could not/would not say no. Public engagements scare me. Deep down I'm shy (stop laughing - all of you!). But I want to have my stories published. I want my books to sell. I want publishers and booksellers to see my books sell so that they publish and stock me again in the future. I want a career. And there are other benefits to promotion as well. So I promote. I agree that you should not do it against your will, that you should be a willing participant, even if you are rigid with fear. But I also think you should give it a go before you decide against it.

Thanks for your recent comment on my blog -- it's great to get another perspective on these things.

I have let myself languish in obscurity for years, despite being published long since. It's time to chnage all that, though standing up and pretending to be a performing monkey as per the public's expectations hardly comes naturally to me. And I'm certain I'm not alone.

One thing we can count on is that publishers are really uninterested in promoting the author- unless of course you are a big cash cow for them and where does that circle start? But working with a publisher effectively is a partnership and if you can think of ways to promote the book that doesn't always mean you have to get up and speak, then that is thinking creatively. So for instance...a holiday programme at a petting farm to promote Clever Moo can involve just 'being' rather than performing. And readers are very generous with the authors they love and admire (which is anyone who has written the book they just read and enjoyed)For some, the style is razzmatazz, but it doesn't necessarily result in better sales. Look at Kate versus Brian- they both do it differently but super effectively. The trick is not feeling like a possum in the headlights and that only comes with practice.

Hi Melinda, As an illustrator it's a slightly different game I guess. If we don't promote our work to publishers constantly we die in obscurity. If writers attach our work to theirs to try an sell their 'scripts to publishers, we're certain death to them though... Promoting our work after the book is published in as many ways as possible and hunting out the opportunity to grab some editorial space in the local rag by staging an event is just an extension of that same promotion - but it doesn't get any easier!

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